This undated photo provided by Maui Grown Therapies shows the dispensary's sales room in Kahului, Hawaii. Dispensary sales of medical marijuana in Hawaii are beginning after patients waited 17 years for a legal way to purchase the drug. Maui Grown Therapies was the first dispensary in the state to sell medical marijuana to patients. (Maui Grown Therapies via AP)

Hawaii’s first medical marijuana dispensary sells out in days

The state's only licensed lab is the bottleneck

WAILUKU, Hawaii — Less than a week after it opened, Maui’s first state-licensed medical marijuana dispensary is reworking its opening hours as demand for its product outstrips supply because of a backlog.

Maui Grown Therapies says it had expected its most recent batch of flowers to clear state lab certification by Saturday, but that didn’t happen, The Maui News reported. Company officials said it sold out its first batch of certified flowers Saturday.

Maui Grown Therapies opened for business Tuesday. Company officials say the dispensary could only sell flowers — resulting in depleted flower stocks on Maui and “disappointed patients.”

The company said it needs the Department of Health’s State Labs Division “to help unclog a backlog of products so Maui patients can have access to quality-assured medicinal cannabis products.”

It will be closed Monday and Tuesday and reopen at noon Wednesday, when it will sell to patients who make appointments through its website.

“It’s unfortunate that an administrative hindrance of this magnitude prevents patients from getting the help they need,” said Christopher Cole, director of product management for Maui Grown Therapies. “We had planned to open with a full range of derivative products such as concentrates, oils, capsules and topical products, but at the eleventh hour we discovered that the State Labs Division had failed to certify a lab to conduct testing of manufactured products.”

State offices were closed Saturday, and state Health Department officials could not be reached for comment.

“We could serve thousands of patients with the amount of manufactured product we currently have available for final compliance testing,” Cole said. “Even though we were approved by the Department of Health on May 24 to manufacture cannabis products, the restrictions placed on the state’s only licensed lab have prevented us from offering these products to our patients — and it is entirely unclear to us when this will change.”

The dispensary’s initial posted hours were 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Dispensary hours have been changed to noon to 6 p.m. until further notice.